'Modern Family' Actor Reveals Addiction to Plastic Surgery

Reid Ewing, who stars as Dylan on the Emmy-winning TV series "Modern Family," has revealed his struggles with both body dysmorphia and an addiction to plastic surgery.

In a blog post detailing his regrets about the multiple procedures he's undergone, the 27-year-old actor admits that he had his first cosmetic surgery in 2008 at the age of 19.

"I genuinely believed if I had one procedure, I would suddenly look like Brad Pitt," Ewing writes.

The Florida-raised Ewing had recently moved to Los Angeles to become an actor and writes that with few friends in his new city he would instead obsessively focus on his appearance, taking pictures of himself "from every angle, analyzing every feature."

Ewing then details his cosmetic procedures—and their failures—beginning with painful cheek implants that resulted in him wearing a full facial mask, as well as enduring major swelling, with his cheeks finally looking "as hollow as a corpse's," as his cheekbones protruded more than he had expected.

After a subsequent chin implant and more procedures to repair cosmetic mistakes, Ewing realized he had body dysmorphia—a "mental illness in which a person obsesses over the way he or she looks," as he describes it.

And of all the doctors who operated on Ewing, the actor writes that "not one had mental health screenings in place for their patients, except for asking if I had a history of depression, which I said I did, and that was that."

He continues, "None of the doctors suggested I consult a psychologist for what was clearly a psychological issue rather than a cosmetic one or warn me about the potential for addiction."

And while Ewing writes that plastic surgery isn't always a bad thing, with people needing it for "serious cases," his reasons were anything but life-threatening.

"[I]t's a horrible hobby," he writes, "and it will eat away at you until you have lost all self-esteem and joy. I wish I could go back and undo all the surgeries."